The Office of Fair Trading has requested control of the investigation into the merger of T-Mobile and Orange, making a quick decision unlikely and delighting the competition.
The request (pdf) asks that the European Commission hand over the UK parts of the investigation to the UK authorities. It has requested this on the basis …

a nationwide 4G network?

Neither T-Mobile nor Orange has ever managed a nationwide 2G network, let alone 4G. Massive areas of my home county (Wiltshire) see no signal at all and as soon as you go further South or West, you can forget T-Orange entirely. Voda and O2 are the only reliable carriers down here.

RE: future merger with O2..

How about Orange Tea ?

Erm... Death of 3?

From the guardian:

The main concern was about the merger's effect on the future of 3, which has driven price competition in recent years. However, over the weekend, 3, which is owned by the Hong Kong conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa, signed a new deal with T-Mobile and Orange, which will give it access to 3,000 more mast sites across the UK over the next few years, bringing the total to 16,000, the largest 3G network in the country.